Prima lezione

After going with the other CET students to Siena’s immigration office to register our student visas, we headed to our classes, hence the beginning of my “prima lezione,” first Italian lesson. Class is from 9-11:30am each day, and one other student (Elena) who is new to Italian too is in class with me. Our teacher is Marco, who is about 40 years old. He only spoke a few English words to us the entire class, but he speaks Italian slowly, repeats himself, and uses gestures, so between the two of us we could usually understand what he was trying to communicate. He is very encouraging and patient with us. He started the class by having us call out all of the Italian words we knew, which he then wrote on the whiteboard. He was laughing at my examples because they all revolved around food, which I had learned from cooking with Stella! (I.e. pepperoncini, aglio, formaggio, pane, e cipolla). Today’s class was very basic material – going over how to introduce yourself and say where you are from. These examples helped us to learn the singular personal pronouns and conjugation of the “-are” ending verbs as well as the “esse” (“to be”) verb. Elena and I listened to CD tracks of conversations, which helped with the workbook exercises. Marco also had us act out role plays of introducing one another etc. It was a good first class, and later that day Ana Rose helped me with my homework. I feel kind of like I am in kindergarten with my textbooks and workbooks because they have cartoons scattered throughout and we’re learning such basic material – but that’s not to say that I’m not enjoying learning Italian… I am more than excited to begin practicing even the basic things that I learned, and I came home explaining what I learned to Stella and Ana Rose. Ana Rose and I had lunch with Stella (insalatone – big salad), and then we ran some errands around Siena, including buying leggings because they’re having an unusual cold spell for which none of us were prepared clothing-wise! We then went for a run around the Fortezza and ran into two other CET students along the way. I mentioned earlier that I love how quickly Siena becomes home, such as passing by familiar faces every day. After homework and showers, Ana Rose and I explored Siena some more, enjoying the little bit of sun that appeared before heading back for dinner with Stella. Tonight we had bowtie pasta with zucchini and ham, crostini, green beans, and ricotta frittata. Watermelon with feta cheese was for dessert. We talked for a long time, hearing funny stories of Stella’s past students, some of whom have become lifelong friends.